How to Effectively Use Website Photography
Photographic content can be a powerful tool for enhancing your website and engaging your website visitors. However, as with any powerful tool, photography can be a double-edged sword. Read on to learn how to avoid common pitfalls and leverage website photography to support your message and polish your online profile.
Use High Quality Photos
There are few things that can undermine your website as efficiently as a blurry, overexposed, or out-of-focus photo. Take the time to ensure that all of the photo content that you post on your website has the right dimensions for your uses and is of the highest quality. This ensures it supports your website and enhances the rest of your content.
Use Engaging Images
They say “A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words”, but you want to make sure that those words tell a story. There’s something to be said for using photos to lend color to a webpage, but why stop there? Leverage your photos by ensuring that the photo draws the viewer’s eye and tells a story, which brings us to our next key point…
Ensure that Images Support the Content
Now that you have a high-quality, eye-catching photo, make sure that the image supports your intended message and complements the other content on the page. Clarity and a unified message are invaluable assets in a website.
Don’t Overdo It
When it comes to website content, sometimes less is more. If a visitor is caught in a full-on assault to the senses when viewing your website, they are likely to be distracted from your intended message or confused by the different content. Unless your message is that you have lots of high-quality website photography, it’s best to limit the amount of photographic content you present to your viewer at any one time.
Own the Rights
The last thing a web administrator wants-whether they manage a company website, or they’re a passionate hobbyist with a url-is to deal with a lawsuit over copyright infringement. Make sure that you own the rights to your website photography by either simply taking the photo yourself or ensuring that you have purchased the rights to use the picture commercially.
Keep these tips in mind during your next website update, and you’ll be sure to finish with a stunning product.
What other tips do you have for using website photography? Let us know in the comments below!
Posted: June 2016
Revised: August 2019